A Vision Fulfilled – An Exemplary Assemblage of Islamic Art: Nasser David Khalili in Conversation
Sajid Rizvi
from Eastern Art Report Vol IV No 1
© Eastern Art Report 1992-1998. All rights reserved.
In a (1992) conversation with the EAR Editor in Chief, the collector hailed as the most dedicated of the collectors of Islamic art offers the background to the building of his 20,000-piece holding that now awaits a home. Will it be Britain? Or will it be somewhere else?
The collection and the persona of Dr Nasser David Khalili provided ample opportunities for speculative writing by the popular media before the collector himself could put in a few words. In a conversation with Sajid Rizvi, managing editor of Eastern Art Report, Dr Khalili spoke about the beginnings of his passion for Islamic art, his vision of an exemplary collection as it evolved through two decades and his ideas about showing the objects, some 20,000 of them, in a public setting. Excerpts
Sajid Rizvi. In the foreword to the volumes recently published you say that you had a vision about starting this collection of Islamic art. How did it come about?
Nasser D Khalili. I come from Iran, a country with an Islamic culture, and a country which played a major role in the development of Islamic art. Not only that, my father loved Islamic art, and so I was brought up to appreciate it. It was a natural thing that I started collecting, but I didn't want just a group of beautiful objects -- from the beginning I aspired to something of wider importance. My vision was of a comprehensive collection that illustrates the whole material culture of the Islamic lands.
SR. That you've been acquiring great works of Islamic art at considerable cost has been known for some time. What may be a revelation to most is the range and magnificence of that collection which you now hold. Is this it then -- has the collection come to a point where you need add no more objects to it? Is it complete?
NDK. The collection is now substantial in terms of the number of objects -- there are over 20,000 items in it. And all regions and periods are represented. But a conscientious collector never stops. Creating a fossilised museum is the last thing on my mind. Collecting is a positive sort of addiction; it is like being a sportsman who can never win too many times.
SR. But you're seeing your vision materialise before your eyes. Even as you say your collecting is not over yet, you now have one of the finest collections, by far the most comprehensive, as acknowledged by scholars who are writing about it. What do you intend to do with it?
NDK. We will do as we planned from the very beginning. As you know, rumours about my intentions regarding the Collection have been rife for many years. They need not have been; it's just that I did not consider it appropriate to reveal the plan earlier. The plan has always been first to conserve and document the Collection in its entirety, publish it, and then house it in a museum.
SR. Where would this museum be?
NDK. This question has been given and is still being given a lot of thought. We are in negotiation with certain people. We are hoping that within the next few months, hopefully before the end of the year, there will be an announcement by one of the governments with regard to a home for this Collection. My hope is to come to some sort of agreement with the British government so that the Collection may be displayed in this country, but that depends on how much we can give and take at the end of the day. The negotiations are being handled by Lord Young of Graffham, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, and I have very little to do with it.
SR. It might come as a surprise to many people that Lord Young and other gentlemen from the British establishment are involved with this trust as connoisseurs of art, Islamic art.
NDK. When you cook a meal you need several ingredients. In any project of this nature and magnitude you need different forces to contribute to make sure that it is accomplished. My part in the project started with the decision to begin collecting, and you can say that the collecting process was where I played the biggest role. But in the next two stages -- the publication of the catalogues and the setting up of a museum -- I've had to involve a lot of other people. Some of them know about Islamic art, and some of them don't. For the catalogues we need photographers and book designers as well as art historians, and for the creation of a museum we need someone with the skill to negotiate with governments. Lord Young is a friend of mine, and he was the obvious person to ask. His contribution in that respect has been considerable. Although he does not claim to be an Islamic art scholar, he has quickly come to appreciate the importance of the Collection and to share my aims.
SR. But you have also set yourself apart from many other collectors, first by funding a high level of scholarship centred on the Collection and then by agreeing to make it accessible to the general public.
NDK. I think I'm right in saying that what you don't show you don't have, and that applies to most things in life. If you have the finest collection in the world and keep it hidden in your basement, not sharing it with the rest of the world, then you're doing yourself -- and the collection -- little justice. So I have to share it, it's part of my nature. And there are two ways to do this. One is to publish the Collection, so that is available all over the world. And I wanted the catalogue to be worthwhile in terms of scholarship and to be produced to the highest technical standards. The high standard means the books are expensive to produce, and so I have had to subsidise them to give them a wider readership. The second way to share the Collection is to put it on display to the public.
SR. This is the second significant step you've taken in recent years to promote Islamic art, the first being the endowment for the Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology at SOAS. If the Collection is housed in London that will make the city a virtual centre for Islamic art. Is that your intention?
NDK. London is one of the great cultural cross-roads of the world, and it already has a major role in the promotion of Islamic art. Partly that is because the national collections here contain a great deal of Islamic material. But this material has not been built up systematically to cover the whole field, and there are large gaps in their coverage. My collection would fill those gaps. Then London would be the real centre for Islamic art. And the emphasis in the museums and galleries here would be pushed further in the direction of the wider world of art, outside Europe, and, as this has always been a very cosmopolitan city, that's important. London is also my first choice because it is now my home.
SR. It is true that the bulk of the scholarship of Islamic art has been thanks to non-Muslim scholars, but that is perhaps one of the great strengths of Islamic art, is it not? That the people who have been most responsible for promoting Islamic art in the world at large are not necessarily practising Muslims or people who belong to that denomination. This is useful in the argument that Islamic art is not a parochial art, but has a universal message.
NDK. One of the things that I believe in is that art is an international language that is not limited by national boundaries or religion. It is true that until recently most scholars in the field were non-Muslims, but that's changing dramatically as Islamic countries wake up to the importance of their artistic heritage. Look at Turkey, for example. But non-Muslims will always be interested in Islamic art, because it played a central role in world culture. And you have to remember that Islamic societies were governed by Muslims, but they always included large non-Muslim communities who shared the same culture to a large extent and who produced many artefacts for Muslim patrons.
SR. Your offer to house your collection in a public museum has implications for today's Europe. Do you visualise that having an Islamic art centre in Britain will actually increase the awareness of the Islamic community in our midst, or that it would allow Muslims to immerse themselves more in their culture?
NDK. Yes, we have to make sure that as Europe moves towards greater integration it does not build a wall around itself. There are millions of Muslims in Europe. So a centre for Islamic art will work on different levels. It will show non-Muslim Europeans that their Muslim fellow-citizens are heirs to a great tradition that deserves their respect. It will stop them thinking of Muslims only in terms of 'fundamentalists', 'terrorists' and 'hostage-takers.' It will also give European Muslims access to their own culture and make them even more proud of it.
SR. How do you see the role of a museum containing your collection of Islamic art in the world culture that is evolving today?
NDK. You will have a museum with more than 20,000 items which have been fully restored, conserved, catalogued, photographed and published even before the museum has opened its doors. We will be giving Islamic art the credit it deserves, perhaps for the first time on this scale. If you are going to have a 'world culture' that includes everybody, you have to make sure that everyone's contribution is given its proper place. One way to build this future 'world culture' is to take a few stones from the past. Our contribution will be to ensure that the world community becomes aware of that through a greater appreciation of the human accomplishment that Islamic art represents. This I believe is the raison d'etre for our collection.
